Introduction

Thank you for purchasing this item. Plunk is simple and minimalistic blog theme built for the popular Wordpress platform. Comprehensive documentation will show you everything you need to know about building a blog with your new theme. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this documentation, please send me an email via the contact form on my profile page. Thanks so much!

Requirements

Minimal requirements that you will need in order to set up web site using your new theme:

• Web Hosting
• WordPress installation files
• FTP application (e.g. FileZilla)
• Theme files downloaded from ThemeForest.net

What's Included?

After purchase if you choose to download "All files & documentation", your theme folder will contain the following files and folders:

1. Documentation
2. dummy-content.xml
3. plunk.zip
4. PSD

If you chose to download "Installable WordPress file only" you should have the plunk.zip archive. This archive is ready to be installed via the dashboard.

Install via WordPress

The easiest way to install theme in WordPress is via dashboard. Login to your WordPress admin panel and follow instructions from video.

Install via FTP

In this case you need to extract the theme zip archive. After this, use any FTP application to upload the entire unpacked folder into the themes folder on your webserver /wp-content/themes/.

Next, go to your dashboard and activate the theme. That's all.

Dummy Content

It is not mandatory to import dummy content into your WordPress blog. Dummy content is here just in case you want to see how posts and pages from theme preview looks in dashboard.

To import dummy content into your blog watch the video or follow these steps below.

1. Log into your site as an administrator.
2. Make sure you activated your new theme before proceeding.
3. Go to Tools → Import
4. Choose “WordPress” from the list.
5. Upload the dummy content .xml using the form provided on that page.
6. You will be asked to map the authors in this export file to users on the blog. For each author, you may choose to map to an existing user on the blog or to create a new user.
7. You will then have the choice to import attachments, so click on the “Download and import file attachments” box.
8. Please be patient while WordPress imports all the content. Posts, Pages, Projects, and Menus are imported. You will need assign the menu a theme location & you’ll need to configure widgets. This is a limitation of WordPress’ import system.
9. Enjoy!

Important: You have purchased a WordPress theme, and not the example content as seen in the theme preview. You can import the dummy content into your blog to help you get going, but the images from preview are not included. There are dummy images instead.

Reading

Set the number of posts on the blog page. Click Settings → Reading. Recommended value for field "Blog pages show at most" is 5 posts. But of course you can put any value you want.

Pages

This theme comes with three page templates: Default Template, Archives Page and Contact Page. To create new page go to Pages → Add New. Type the title and content for your new page, and from the Page Attributes panel choose your page template.

If you choose Archives Page template, the yearly list of articles will be added to your content.

If you choose Contact Page template, to your content will be added a contact form.

On finish click "Publish" button.

Menu Setup

To setup your menu navigate to Appearance → Menus. If you have installed the dummy content, one default menu should be available. If not click "Create Menu".

Edit your default menu by adding or removing items. Change label of your menu items and drag each item into the order you prefer. Click Create Menu to save your changes.

Add Widgets

Archives and Categories are limited to four items. Archives shows 4 last months and Categories 4 items ordered by the count of posts in that Category.

Admin Login Logo

Create your custom logo for admin login page and upload it using FTP application in folder /images of your theme folder. The file name must be: admin-login-logo.png. Crop your logo image at: 300x80.

WordPress' Customizer

The theme is built to use advantages of WordPress' native customizer. You can customize your blog with live modification. Play until you are satisfied with your blog design, click Save & Publish and changes will be shown on your live site.

To start click Appearance → Customize or click Theme Options at top level menu.

Theme Options

The main place for customizing all major parts of the theme design is Theme Options. What you can customize from the Theme Options:

1. Site Identity - site title, tagline, and the site icon
2. Logo - upload your custom logo image
3. Colors - change primary and background colors
4. Background Image - transparent or full width, tiled or centered
5. Copyright Text - text in bottom footer
6. Social Networks - 10 available
7. Contact Form Email - where to send messages from Contact Page
8. Tracking Code - paste your Google Analytics (or other) tracking code
9. Widgets - add, remove or edit widgets
10. Static Front Page - choose blog or static front page

Note: site icon and logo image will not be visible on your live site until your first Save in Customizer.

Social Networks

If you want to show links to your social networks profile pages, just paste your URLs in appropriate text fields. Blank would not be shown. Available social networks:

Tracking Code

Paste your Google Analytics (or other) tracking code in the text field under Tracking Code setting. This code will be inserted before the closing body tag.

Customize in 5 min

It is extremely easy and fast to customize the theme using WordPress' native customizer. This short video shows how you can modify basic features of the theme in 5 minutes.

Video Controls

To change controller colors and appearance of featured videos, go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and click "Media Settings" in Featured Video Plus section. Here you'll find options for Local Video, YouTube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion.

Basics

The basic steps for creating a new post on your blog are listed below. Detailed guide you can read on WordPress codex site: Writing Posts.

1. Log in to your WordPress Administration Panel (Dashboard).
2. Click the 'Posts' tab.
3. Click the 'Add New' sub-tab.
4. Start filling in the blanks: enter your post title in the upper field, and enter your post body content in the main post editing box below it.
5. Select existing or create a new category, add tags.
6. Set Featured Image or Video.
7. When you are ready, click Publish.

Read More

You can truncate your blog entries so that only the first part of certain post is displayed on the home page. When you do this, a link will be placed directly after your excerpt, pointing the reader to the full post.

Featured Image

Featured Image is image that is chosen as the representative image for Posts and Pages. The best sizes in pixels of featured image for post and page are:

Post: 1200 x 615
Page: 1170 x 600

The difference comes from the fact that a post featured image is animated on hover. So it should be a bit bigger than containing div to avoid loss of image quality during transform.

Featured Video

If you want to set featured video for post instead of featured image, just paste the video URL in Featured Video URL field. Beside your Local Videos you can use videos from YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion.

Plugin will also automatically create featured image. You don't need to bother about this.

Overview

Post Formats provides a possibility to a user to change how each post looks by choosing a Post Format from a radio-button list.

The following Post Formats are available in this theme:

• Gallery - A gallery of images.
• Image - A single image.
• Audio - Embed code from a site like soundcloud.
• Video - A single video or video playlist.
• Aside - Similar to a Facebook note update.
• Link - A link to another site.
• Quote - A quotation.
• Chat - A chat transcript.

Note: When writing or editing a Post, Standard is used to designate that no Post Format is specified.

Format Gallery

An image gallery will display a set of thumbnails attached to a gallery post. How to create gallery:

1. Click on the Add Media button.
2. Click on Create Gallery on the left side of the screen.
3. Click Upload Files.
4. Click on Create New Gallery.
5. Set Gallery Settings on the right side of the screen.
6. Click Insert Gallery.

In 3rd step you should add images from your hard drive. Drag and drop your files into the box that appears, or click Select Files to choose a picture from your computer to upload.

Avoid adding images from your Media Library in Gallery Posts. Images uploaded to other posts will not count in number of gallery images for the current post.

Only images that are uploaded (attached) to particular post will count in total number of gallery images for that post.

Gallery Settings

If you would like to show bigger image in lightbox when thumbnail is clicked, in Link To drop down list choose: Media File.

Next, choose the number of Columns for your gallery. For number of columns you can choose any value from 1 to 9.

And the last, choose to show your images in Random Order every time user visit the post page, or not.

Image, Audio, Video

For this kind of post formats it is enough to embed appropriate URL address which points to your audio or video source. URL will be styled and shown on your page along with other content. This doesn't apply to the images. You should add images from your Media Library.

Format Chat

Even numbered paragraphs are in other color because of the better reading experience. A chat transcript, should be formatted like so:

Format Aside

The aside is simple, short, and minor. The aside could contain perhaps a paragraph or two. Typically styled without a title, but recommended is to give a title anyway, because of the better appearance on Archives page. Type your text in post content part, type a title (or not), choose Aside post format radio button and that's all.

Format Link

A link to another site. This post format should be simple, short and minor. The link post format would probably be only a sentence with a link to some URL in it. Format in Text editor looks like this:

Format Quote

The quote format is suited to posting a simple quote from a person with no extra information. Put the quote into the post content alone, and put the quoted person's name into the title of the post.

Using Shortcodes

A shortcode is a WordPress specific code that lets you do nifty things with very little effort. Shortcodes create objects that would normally require lots of complicated, ugly code in just one line.

The Shortcode with attributes and without any content should be formatted like so:

[shortcode foo="bar" bar="bing"]

The Shortcode with content but without attributes looks like this:

[shortcode]...[/shortcode]

And the Shortcode with attributes and content:

[shortcode foo="bar" bar="bing"]...[/shortcode]

Note: Instead of three dots in above examples, goes textual content.

Bootstrap 3

Bootstrap includes a responsive grid system that appropriately scales up to 12 columns as the device or viewport size increases. Grid system is used for creating post layouts through a series of rows and columns that holds your content. Learn more about Bootstrap 3 here.

Bootstrap grid is used in this theme for creating responsive layout via Plunk Grid plugin shorcodes.

Plunk Grid

Grid columns are created by specifying the number of twelve available columns you wish to span. For example, three equal columns would use three md="4". Put your content between "column" tags.

Full Width Column

[row]
[column md="12"]...[/column]
[/row]

Half Width Columns

[row]
[column md="6"]...[/column]
[column md="6"]...[/column]
[/row]

Third Width Columns

[row]
[column md="4"]...[/column]
[column md="4"]...[/column]
[column md="4"]...[/column]
[/row]

Fourth Width Columns

[row]
[column md="3"]...[/column]
[column md="3"]...[/column]
[column md="3"]...[/column]
[column md="3"]...[/column]
[/row]

Two Third Column

[row]
[column md="8"]...[/column]
[column md="4"]...[/column]
[/row]

---

Text and Image(s)

Bootstrap 3 is suitable to combine text and image(s). It is enough to add image from Media Library between "column" brackets and the image will be responsive-friendly.

[row]
[column md="6"] some text here [/column]
[column md="6"] add image from Media Library [/column]
[/row]

Plunk Shortcodes

This plugin include built-in shortcodes to help you create content fast and easy. What you can create:

• Button
• Progress Bar
• Alert Box
• Dropcap
• Text Box
• Blockquote
• Preformatted Text

Button

color: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple, gray, black
size: small, medium, large
to: the button url

[button color="red" size="medium" to="http://google.com"]Open Google[/button]

Open Google

---

Progress Bar

color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray
title: progress bar title (optional)
width: percent width

[progress title="Illustrator" width="70" color="green"]

---

Alert Box

color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray

[alert-box color="blue"]The blue alert box.[/alert-box]

---

Dropcap

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]aragraph with dropcap...

Paragraph with dropcap... Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consect etur adipiscing elit. Morbi volutpat nulla lobortis, volutpat puni nulla id, elementum augue dolor sit amet.

---

Text Box

[text-box]Some text goes here.[/text-box]

---

Blockquote

[quote cite="Famous Author"]Some wise words.[/quote]

Some wise words.Famous Author

---

Preformatted Text

[pre]...[/pre] 


<pre>...</pre>

Basic Steps

In folder plunk/languages you will find a "pot" file named plunk.pot. This file you will use to translate the theme. In order to do this you should create *.po and *.mo files. After this you should tell WordPress what language to use. So, these are the steps for translating theme:

1. Locate theme POT file (folder /languages)
2. Translate the POT file (create PO and MO files)
3. Upload PO and MO files to your theme folder
4. Tell WordPress what lnguage to use

POT file is basically the template file for PO file. Contains all the translation strings in English.

PO file is the text file that includes the original strings from POT file and the translations into your preferred language.

MO file includes the exact same contents as PO file, but in other format. MO file is compiled and its easy for computers to read. Your web server will use the MO file to display the translations.

Some texts/strings is provided by WordPress (the date) and you can’t translate them with the theme language files. You also should install WordPress on your language.

PoEdit

There are a number of tools you can use to translate WordPress sites. For translating this theme we will use PoEdit. You’ll translate faster and easier with it.

Poedit is a free program that you can use to write translations for any software or web site that uses Gettext for localization. WordPress uses PO files for everything: WordPress core, themes and plugins.

In order to translate theme, you should download and install PoEdit. Follow these steps to download and install PoEdit:

1. Download PoEdit
2. Start installation
3. Read License Agreement and press “I accept the agreement” and Next
4. Choose installation directory and press Next
5. Press Install
6. Wait for installation to complete

After installation is finished you should be able to start PoEdit.

Translating

Open Poedit and go to File → New catalog from POT file and select the POT from your theme’s /languages folder. The process is easy:

Select a string from the pool → Translate in the translation modal

Translated strings are shown next to the original in the pool of strings.

PoEdit will automatically compile a .mo file for you when you save your work on the existing .po file. In order to do that, make sure you go to File → Preferences and on the Editor tab check the Automatically compile .mo file on save box.

Your file should carry the name of the language you will be translating into. PoEdit will do this for you. If not sure check the list of language codes and country codes to find yours.

Upload .po and .mo files into your theme's /languages folder.

Configure WordPress

The very last step is to edit your wp-config.php file to tell WordPress what .mo file you will be using for your theme’s translation.

Open wp-config.php in a text editor and find this:

define ('WPLANG', '');

The second value should reflect the name of the .mo file you are created earlier (type the file name without extension):

define ('WPLANG', 'de_DE');

Finally, upload your wp-config.php file to WordPress installation folder on your web server.